


A Means To Rewind

by revolutionaries



Category: Durarara!!
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Dialogue Heavy, M/M, Mutual Pining, Panic Attacks, Recovery, References to Suicide, Trauma
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2017-11-08
Updated: 2018-02-01
Packaged: 2019-01-31 02:28:55
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 4
Words: 19,789
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/12666417
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/revolutionaries/pseuds/revolutionaries
Summary: 'In the driver's seat, Kine drums his fingers against the wheel and sighs. His eyes are fixed firmly on the road ahead. "The Headless Rider is leaving Japan tonight."Izaya glances down at the knife still embedded in his side, held there by thin tendrils of black shadows that spill out of the open window next to him. In pockets of fluorescent light, the buildings that line the expressway flash by him. The brightness pierces through him and sends more pain spiking through his head. He closes his eyes."Take me to Kishitani Shinra."'AU in which Izaya goes to Shinra in the aftermath of the series.





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> Title from After the Rain's 'Anticlockwise'.
> 
> Warnings: explicit details of Izaya's injuries & discussions of suicide. 
> 
> This is the longest thing I've worked on in about three or four years so apologies for any issues with pacing that may arise! I'm still getting used to it. The next chapter may be a couple of weeks as I want to make sure I do the subject matter justice.

Ikebukuro is pitch black.

Darkness lies over the city like a blanket, dimming even the brightest of city lights. He can feel her anguish in the air itself as he makes his way step by step down the road, Mamiya Manami's arm round his waist for support. She continues to ask him about Izaya as they walk: about his weaknesses, about his failings, about what could break a man like that for good.

Shinra can't help but marvel at the way she demonstrates faint surprise at the things he tells her. It's easy, so easy for him to forget sometimes that not everybody knows Izaya the way he does. Izaya puts up a front of being untouchable, all-knowing so much that it's no wonder people get fooled by it. Not everybody knows the expressions he's capable of making beneath that mask: his most honest laugh, his quick temper when provoked, the bone-chilling form of his true anger.

Izaya somehow manages to get under the skin of most people but it's only Shinra who has been allowed the privilege of doing the same to him.

"Here is far enough," he says, quiet against the black of the night. They stand at the edge of the expressway that borders the west side of the city. "I have to meet someone close by."

Manami nods. "You know a lot about him, don't you, Kishitani-sensei?"

Shinra allows himself a small smile at those words. "I've known him for a long time."

"I can tell." She turns to leave before hesitating. "I…"

"Yes?" Shinra smiles patiently.

She sighs. "I debated whether to tell you this or not, but I'm guessing you probably don't know, and I want to get my revenge against him properly which I can't do if—"

"If… what?" A chill that has nothing to do with the temperature creeps down his back.

"I saw them, earlier," she says quickly. "Orihara and Heiwajima Shizuo fighting."

"They do that a lot," Shinra points out.

"I know that," Manami says, her tone turning defensive. "I've watched him for months. I know how they are. I wouldn't mention it if it didn't seem different this time."

"What do you mean by different?" Shinra asks sharply. The words he had said callously to Izaya in high school play back through his head like a warning.

Manami hesitates again. "I heard people say they were going to kill each other this time."

Shinra closes his eyes and lets out the breath he hadn't known he was holding. "So he finally decided…"

"Decided?"

He opens his eyes and meets her gaze evenly. "That one of them has to die."

Manami swallows. "That's what it looked like."

"Where are they," he says, his voice flat. Her eyes widen in response and he realises the anger running through him must be showing on his face. " _Where_?"

"The east side," she answers quickly before taking a step backwards. She points down the road opposite them. "That way. Not too far from here. But I don't know if they're still there or if they've moved somewhere else."

"Thank you," he says, finding it difficult to inject any sort of emotion into his voice.

Eyes still slightly fearful, she nods and crosses the road hurriedly, glancing back only once to see if he was standing there. Once she disappears down a side street, Shinra turns away and limps along the bridge to meet Kujiragi Kasane.

His meeting with her goes as quickly and as smoothly as he had hoped, complete with a confession that had taken him a little off guard but ultimately made him smile. He knows he and Kujiragi are similar in many ways. That she would seek out somebody so like herself amuses him a little. Shinra himself did the same thing, once.

He glances over the bridge. The lights of Ikebukuro's skyscrapers are duller than they usually are. Celty is up there, somewhere. He knows she'll wait for him. Her sentimentality won't let her leave unless she's able to say goodbye to him.

Making her wait on him wasn't what he planned at all. _Just a little more. I just need a little more time._

He makes his way as quickly as he can down the street Manami had pointed to, his crutch clicking off the paved ground with every step. As he moves further into the main streets he can see a crowd gathering. Kuronuma Aoba stands at a narrow four-way crossing, gesturing wildly and speaking in a raised voice to the other members of the Blue Squares. His voice is still childish sounding, even as he shouts. Sometimes, Shinra forgets just how young these kids playing at gangs really are.

He looks to the left and sees the biker gang, fronted by their leader that Shinra had to patch up once.

Izaya is nowhere to be found.

Shinra slips between the crowd, searching. He considers asking someone if they've heard anything but he really doesn't have the time to get pulled into a however-many way gang war tonight.

And that's when he hears it.

Knowing Shizuo since childhood has given him the unique skill of being able to identify the specific type of crash a vending machine makes when it hits the ground. He turns, heart sinking with the fear of already being too late, and is almost knocked to the ground when Izaya comes sprinting by him from an alley.

He's so focused that he doesn't even notice Shinra standing there until he calls Izaya's name hesitantly. It's only then that his pace slows to a halt and he turns around in disbelief. His mouth is crusted red with the smear of drying blood and there's something distinctly _wrong_ with the way he's moving, like something has happened to his legs.

"Shinra?" he asks, his eyes widening as Shinra takes a couple of slow steps towards him. "What are you—I thought you would be trying to find Celty."

Shinra gives him a small smile. "I will, soon. But I was told by a reliable source that you were going to do something really stupid."

"So you came to watch?" Izaya has never been particularly good at hiding his bitterness whenever Shinra is involved. For too long, Shinra had let himself be entertained by that. Now, it seems like some horrible habit that he waited too long to break.

He takes another two steps forward until Izaya is close enough to touch, if he were to just reach out.

"I came to stop you," he says, and he tries to sound as honest as he can while speaking through the fear thrumming in his veins. If Izaya detects even the slightest hint of a lie he'll never let himself be stopped.

"Why would you do that?"

"Izaya, if you go through with this—" Shinra swallows, surprised at how difficult it is to say the words. Has he ever felt such urgency, such deep-set _terror_ on behalf of another person? His hand trembles around his crutch. "You're going to die."

The breath that shudders through Izaya is unmistakable, even from where Shinra is standing. He looks away, unable to meet Shinra's eye. It's the subject they've never addressed, the one thing even Shinra could never find the courage to speak aloud.

"I know," says Izaya, still staring at the ground.

"Izaya," Shinra tries again. "Please don't do this."

That surprises him. Taken aback, Izaya raises his head. "What did you say?"

"Just _don't_." He grips his crutch tightly. Sweat beads at the back of his neck despite the chill in the air. "Just walk away."

For a split second, Izaya looks like he might even cry, like nobody had ever said something like that to him before. Like he'd never even considered it as a possibility. Then the expression is gone, so fleeting that Shinra might even have imagined it. "I can't walk away now. I have to do this."

"You don't have to!" Shinra nearly shouts the words at him, the steadily swelling anger in his chest feeling like it might burst. A world without Orihara Izaya, Ikebukuro without Orihara Izaya in it—

He knows that what he says now matters. He knows that he's the only person who could ever influence Izaya, the only person Izaya would try to protect. The only person capable of stopping Izaya from going through with it.

What a horrible burden to bear.

If he were asked to explain it, he wouldn't be able to. He never bothered much with Izaya's desire to be close to him when they were teenagers. Once they graduated high school they rarely saw each other, crossing paths only when Izaya got roughed up or when Celty's work with him brought them into contact.

But he was always there – a permanent fixture in the city's landscape. The thought of no longer being able to feel fond exasperation whenever he heard complains about Izaya messing relentlessly with the people around him – Shinra never knew he could ache like this.

"I do," Izaya says firmly and takes a step closer to Shinra. For a moment Shinra thinks Izaya might actually be brave enough to touch him, but all he does is lower his gaze again and say, "I'm sorry."

He goes to sidestep Shinra and head back the way he came, undoubtedly to go and find Shizuo again, but Shinra grabs his arm. The crutch he had been holding goes clattering to the ground but he makes no effort to pick it back up.

"I don't want you to be sorry," he says, still holding on to Izaya's arm. "I want you to be _alive_."

Izaya's eyes widen again and he stands frozen for a second before wrenching his arm out of Shinra's grip and running off. Shinra watches him go, his heart heavy with fear. How long has Izaya planned this? How long ago did he draw up the blueprints for his own death? Acid builds in the pit of his stomach until he feels sick with it.

With some unfamiliar, uncomfortable emotion itching beneath his skin, Shinra gazes at the side street that Izaya disappeared down. In the distance he swears he can hear Shizuo's voice echo between the buildings but at this point he isn't sure if it's his own imagination or not. He knows what Shizuo is like when he's truly, intensely angry. Shizuo doesn't shout, or yell, or rage when that happens. He overflows with it quietly. Calmly.

There's no outcome of the fight that would leave Izaya standing as victor at the end. What Shizuo lacks in meticulousness and planning, he makes up for it in sheer brute strength that Izaya simply does not have. Izaya is strong, and fast, and far more intelligent than he has any right to be but Shinra knows, _Izaya_ himself knows that he can't win this.

He imagines Shizuo after killing Izaya.

Shinra has known him since childhood, knows that Shizuo at his core is gentle and more than capable of kindness, and thinks about what that amount of guilt could do to a person like that.

Shinra has never had to worry about such things for himself.

He takes a deep breath of the cold air, barely even noticing that he's starting to shiver. Celty is up in the sky somewhere and no doubt she has at the very least a faint idea of what's going on down on the ground. She would tell him the same, he's sure: that he shouldn't abandon either of the two friends he has at a time when he might actually be needed.

He sighs and glances again down the street Izaya went. A lone streetlamp flickers between yellow and nothing, illuminating the white lines by the side of the road. The faint sound of sizzling electricity, the heavy scent of smoke. He knows he has to follow.

Shinra slowly lowers himself down until he can pick up his abandoned crutch successfully and then before he can hesitate any further, he starts moving.

It doesn't take long to find them. They hadn't gone far. He keeps to the shadows of the alley, one hand pressed to the tiled wall of the building next to him. There aren't many people around here, not nearly as many as there had been in the area surrounding the Blue Squares' leader and Toramaru. Shinra wonders if this is even what Izaya wants. If his plan is to make Shizuo into a monster in the eyes of the public then surely such a thing would be better done in a crowded area. Or perhaps that had been his original plan until he came barreling through the fray and found Shinra waiting there for him.

Had Shinra inadvertently screwed up Izaya's plan for his perfect death?

Shizuo hurls an air conditioning vent and Izaya barely sidesteps it, stumbling with the force of his own movement. Shinra narrows his eyes. Something has definitely happened to his legs: he can barely stand with them straight and moving quickly or with any kind of precision seems to be impossible for him.

But still, Izaya lunges forward with his blade open, slashing downwards and ripping open Shizuo's shirt in a way reminiscent of their first meeting. But that was then, and Izaya is wielding a much longer, more powerful knife so he strikes with more success. Blood spills out of Shizuo's chest, staining his white shirt crimson.

Izaya retreats a little, backing down a different street and Shizuo follows like a magnet. And then Shinra realises what Izaya is trying to do: to lead Shizuo back out into the open fray with hundreds of witnesses, back to what must have been his original plan. The pounding in his chest grows more pronounced still as he realises that his conversation with Izaya could have cost him precious minutes of movement that he couldn't afford.

He retreats further, still facing Shizuo with his knife held out in front of him before he turns and runs back to the main street. Shizuo reaches out a hand and topples the vending machine next to him, brilliant red in its colour. His hand finds the mouth of it and he starts to drag it forward in the direction that Izaya ran.

Shinra takes a shaking breath in and follows after them, keeping a safe distance so that he remains undetected. The last thing that Izaya needs is to become distracted by catching sight of him.

The main street is still ablaze with neon and crowds of people, but instead of watching Toramaru everyone has turned to stare at the unfolding war between Shizuo and Izaya.

Shizuo throws the vending machine at Izaya. Eyes widening, Izaya falls to his knees and lets it fly over him, his breath coming in hard gasps. He pushes himself back to his feet and wobbles a little, pain written clear across his face. As quickly as he can, he pulls out his knife again and darts forward, but Shizuo is one step ahead of him this time. He throws a punch and Izaya is forced to drop the knife to block it, throwing up his arms in a cross in front of him to protect his head.

The _crack_ that resounds through the night is sickening.

Izaya goes flying backwards, crying out in agony. Shinra drops his crutch as his hands fly to cover his mouth in horror. Even Shizuo looks momentarily stunned.

For a second, Shinra thinks that this is the end, that it must be finished now. Izaya lies still on the ground, the fur of his coat matted with his blood. But then his fingers twitch and he slowly begins to push himself back to his feet.

He opens his eyes and stares directly at Shizuo. Shinra has never seen such hatred, such fear, such open excitement in anyone's gaze before.

Then Izaya laughs, blood dripping down his face, and he says, "Finish it, monster."

Unable to watch his friend die, Shinra leaves as quietly as he can and pretends that the wetness in the corner of his eyes is just a reaction to the horror coursing through him.

 

/

 

His heart still heavy, he makes his way through Ikebukuro by following the trail of Celty's shadows webbed across the city sky. She's closer than he thought, but even the thought of finally reaching her and bringing her back can't light any feelings of excitement within him. He still feels hollow from Shizuo and Izaya's fight. The loss rings throughout his entire being, like someone has hacked off one of his limbs in some sick surgical experiment.

Izaya won't survive and Shizuo will never be the same.

He trudges forward slowly, one foot in front of the other until the sound of his crutch tapping against the concrete becomes a steady rhythm. The Tokyo sky is still pitch black, punctuated only by the red aviation lights on the tops of the buildings. Sunrise is still a long way off.

When he reaches the building that he's followed Celty to, all he can bring himself to feel is a dull, muted relief. He climbs to the top more out of a sense of duty than any real excitement. Somewhere within himself he knows that he should be overjoyed to finally see her again after so long but between being haunted by the look in Izaya's eyes and moving around so much while injured he just feels exhausted.

At the top, he's faintly surprised that he isn't the only person there but Celty has always had a way of drawing people to her. Mikado and his friend from the Yellow Scarves are there, both looking worse for wear. Celty's shadows are wound around Mikado's wrist and the Yellow Scarves' leader has crusted tear tracks on his cheeks. Anri stands close by to them along with Harima Mika and her boyfriend and another girl he doesn't recognise.

Shinra's eyes follow the trail of shadows from Mikado's hand to Shooter. It doesn't escape his attention that Shooter has reverted to his original headless horse form and when Celty's movement catches his eye, he notices that she's dressed in her armour.

"Celty," he says loudly over the wind. Ikebukuro sparkles below them and Celty doesn't so much as look at him, the head in her hands facing away. "Celty!" he tries again, raising his voice a little more.

She still won't look at him.

"She's forgotten everything," Anri says softly behind him. "All of us, all the time she spent with us… She doesn't remember any of it."

That makes him smile, finally. He pushes himself forward. "You're telling a lot of lies today, Celty."

Her eyes widen a fraction but otherwise she remains silent. He takes a few steps towards her.

"I bet you're annoyed I showed up, right?" he continues. "If I hadn't you'd be able to leave easily and everyone would be convinced that you lost your memories and disappeared. Ah, sorry for making this difficult!" He beams.

"Who are you?" Celty asks coolly. "Shooter, let's go." The horse doesn't move. "I said, let's _go_!"

"Maybe he's not moving because he knows that if you're going to leave you should at least be honest about it," he tries again, softer this time. "Since you got all your memories back you think that you've caused nothing but trouble to everyone but nobody else feels that way."

Somewhere behind them, Anri agrees softly.

"I don't know what you're talking about, human boy," she replies and cracks Shooter's reins. "Go, Shooter!"

Shooter still doesn't move an inch.

"I'm the last person you wanted to see tonight, right?" he asks rhetorically. "You knew if I came here you wouldn't be able to lie any more. I know you too well, Celty. I can't let you leave because you think you've changed, or that you don't fit in here any more. So please—"

"Go!" Celty forces Shooter forward with desperation plain in her voice and he finally gives. They take off into the sky and Celty doesn't look back.

Shinra sighs in frustration.

"That thing that just left, that was Celty, wasn't it?"

Shinra turns around to see Shizuo standing behind them and smiles, some of the pressure in his chest easing. "Shizuo-kun, I'm about to turn into a villain but I need your help to do it."

"Eh?" Shizuo asks. His face is scratched and bruised, his suit in tatters where it was slashed multiple times by Izaya's knife but otherwise he seems completely unhurt. Shinra's stomach sinks further.

"Remember the promise you made with me in high school?" he asks. "That when the day came for me to do something really bad, you'd hurl me into the sky?"

Understanding dawns in Shizuo's eyes and he grins.

"I'd like you to finally fulfill that promise," Shinra says. "But—first—I saw the fight."

Something like shame falls across Shizuo's face like a shadow.

"I just need to know," he says. "What happened to Izaya?"

Shizuo shakes his head. "I don't know."

"You don't—?"

"Simon threw some kind of flash bomb that blinded everyone," he explains. "By the time I could see again, Izaya was gone."

"Gone," murmurs Shinra. "I see. Thank you, Shizuo-kun. Could you—?"

Shizuo nods. "Better not regret this, you damned villain!"

Seconds later, Shinra flies through the night sky. Celty's head turns in shock as he yells her name. She falters in surprise, drawing nearly to a halt as she watches him hurtle towards her.

His eyes glow red, Saika sings beneath his skin; "Celty, I'm sorry!" he says, and slashes downwards.

When he opens his eyes again it's to Celty shaking him and ramming her phone in his face. He squints, catching a trail of frantic question marks. "You shouldn't shake people who are injured," he says weakly, and then smiles.

He did it.

Celty's shoulders drop in relief. [You could have died!!!!] She waves her phone at him like he can read it at that speed. [Shinra, you could seriously have died!]

He shakes his head. "You would never have let me fall."

She lowers them both to the ground and turns away, stepping closer to where Shooter stands. The tightness of her movements reveals her unhappiness. Dread creeps like icy water into Shinra's chest. This wasn't how he was expecting it to go.

"Celty," he tries.

She types something quickly. When she turns back and holds out her phone, she does so with the rest of her body facing away from him. [You didn't have the right to do that.]

"Celty!" He bites his lip.

[I know why you did it,] she says. [I really do understand. But that doesn't mean I'm okay with it.]

"I'm sorry," he says, dropping his head to look down at his knees. But he isn't sorry enough to say he wouldn't have done it all over again if he had the chance.

[You know how long I spent looking for my head,] Celty says. She doesn't need a physical voice to sound accusing. [You were with me the whole way!]

He laughs but there's no joy in it. "I always knew where it was."

She takes a step back and he regrets his words immediately. If it had been any other night, if he hadn't just witnessed the death of his childhood friend, maybe he would have been more careful. But all that's ringing through him is the loss of both Shizuo and Izaya, and if Celty leaves too he has no idea what he'll do.

[You knew? All this time?]

If her head was still part of her, Shinra wonders if she would be crying. He looks down in shame, but not in guilt. "Of course I did. Izaya had it."

The phone clatters to the ground, its yellow screen beaming up and illuminating the darkness of her armour. When she picks it back up, her hands are shaking.

[Who are you?]

The words hurt so much more than when she said them through her own mouth on the rooftop.

[What else did you lie about?] she types. [We agreed to be honest with each other! You told me to be honest with you back on the roof!]

"If you got it back then you might have left," he says. "How could I be honest if there was the possibility you'd leave me?"

[There's always a risk with honesty!] Anger echoes through every line of her body. [That's why it's hard!]

"I'm sorry, Celty," he says hoarsely. "Please don't go."

She seems to soften a little at his words, her defensive stance loosening, but regardless, she says, [How can you ask me to stay after this?]

"Because I love you," he replies. "And you love me. Isn't that enough?"

[Sometimes, it isn't,] she says. Her fingers are tight around her phone as she holds it up. [I love you. But I can't forgive this so easily.]

"You don't have to," he says hurriedly. "Just… stay and we can work something out. Please."

[I'm sorry,] she holds up. [I can't. Not after this. I need time.]

"How much time?" he says hopelessly, realising that this is a fight he's losing fast.

[I don't know,] she replies. [I'm sorry, Shinra. I love you. But I have to leave after this. After everything that's happened here. I've made a lot of mistakes too and I think some distance from Ikebukuro is best.]

He closes his eyes at the telltale prick of tears. "If it's what you want then fine," he says roughly, afraid that if he says any more he'll do something rash.

She crouches down next to him and runs a hand through his messy hair. [Be safe,] she says.

"I will," he says, and then she's gone, leaving him staring blankly at the ground.

 

/

 

The car moves silently down the empty expressway, the gentle vibrations of the engine sending jolts of agony through every one of his injuries.

In the driver's seat, Kine drums his fingers against the wheel and sighs. His eyes are fixed firmly on the road ahead. "The Headless Rider is leaving Japan tonight."

Izaya glances down at the knife still embedded in his side, held there by thin tendrils of black shadows that spill out of the open window next to him. In pockets of fluorescent light, the buildings that line the expressway flash by him. The brightness pierces through him and sends more pain spiking through his head. He closes his eyes. 

"Take me to Kishitani Shinra."

 


	2. Chapter 2

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> "It would have been better, easier, if he had just disappeared from Tokyo, leaving behind nothing but the echo of his name. Orihara Izaya, informant of Shinjuku. The tiger's skin; an urban legend."

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Warnings: descriptions of a panic attack and general implications of suicide/suicidal thoughts.

Izaya doesn't remember much about the drive to Shinra's apartment. He knows Kine helped him out of the car and up the stairs, waiting with him until Shinra came to the door. Everything from there becomes disjointed, melting into a blur of agony and incomprehension. Shinra's arms might have been around him at the door, carefully helping him inside. Then his face slides into pinpointed clarity, brows pinched and mouth a worried line. More concerned than Izaya has ever seen him look before.

His mouth moves but Izaya can't hear the words that come out.

Then there's an agonising pain somewhere in his side – he's pitching over in the hallway and throwing a hand down to break the fall that never comes. Shinra and Kine grab him, bracing him with their arms around his waist as they guide him through to the room Shinra keeps for patients. The world tilts again.

He doesn't realise his eyes are shut until he feels Shinra gently tugging his ruined coat from around his shoulders, easing it down his back. The second it places extra pressure on his forearms he chokes out a cry of pain. With it comes the now familiar tang of blood on his tongue, behind his teeth. Shinra says something softly by his side that sounds a lot like an apology and then to Kine, like he's speaking through water, "I'll have to cut it off him. Can you—"

And then there's nothing except the feeling of Shinra's fingers lightly brushing his damp hair out of his eyes before he finally loses consciousness.

 

/

 

When he wakes up it's to the sharp clarity of pain, so overwhelming that for a moment he forgets where he is and what happened. Someone – Shinra, he guesses, after the memory lurches back to him – has wrapped both of his arms in casts and he can feel a soft square bandage on his cheek when he moves his face. The familiarity of the tight pain in his side indicates that the stab wound from Vorona's knife has been cleaned and stitched up too.

Against the burn of pain in his arms, he reaches up and manages to peel the oxygen mask from his face by his fingertips. It drops to the ground and he watches as it bounces then finally stills on the floor. Shinra will be mad he did that but the ability to care about that slips between his fingers in the face of the pain-burn in his chest.

He blinks once, twice, staring up at the white ceiling of Shinra's guest room. There's a dull fog in his brain that no doubt comes from whatever drugs Shinra gave him while he slept. How long has it been, he wonders absently as the ceiling slides in and out of focus in a way that would be nauseating if he was fully awake. One day? Two? The last thing he remembers he was in Kine's car, watching the city through the open window and asking to be taken far away from Tokyo.

_The Headless Rider is leaving Japan tonight_. Kine's words play back through his head and it hits him with sickening clarity. Celty is gone, Vorona stabbed him and Shizuo, Shizuo—

He lets out a shaky breath. He's in Shinra's apartment. He's alive. That means he lost in more ways than one. He's alive. Shizuo didn't kill him, Shizuo didn't become a murderer, Izaya is alive Izaya didn't become a martyr Izaya didn't slay the monster Izaya didn't die.

Behind his aching ribs, his heart hammers relentlessly as if flaunting the awful fact that he survived what he had never intended to. Nausea burns in the pit of his stomach. He squeezes his eyes shut and feels tears slip sideways down his cheeks and onto the pillow. He lost. He lost. He's alive and he's with Shinra and Shinra will _know_ —

Worse still, Shinra will ask him to explain himself. When they met on Sunshine Shinra's tone had been desperate. He had known exactly what Izaya was going to do. Perhaps he'd always known that it would come to this.

Izaya has never heard him speak with that kind of emotion in his voice. He finds himself replaying it over and over in his head. _Please don't do this_ , and _I want you to be alive_. He should have left Tokyo when he had the chance despite Kine's protests. Disappearing as though he had never existed at all would be easier than Shinra forcing him to explain himself.

He bites back a sob and almost chokes on it.

There's a tentative knock at the door a couple of seconds later, like Shinra had been listening for any sound that would indicate Izaya had woken up.

"Izaya?" comes Shinra's voice, quiet through the wood.

"No," says Izaya thickly in answer to the next question he knows Shinra will ask. "Go away."

"Izaya…"

"Go _away_. Now."

Shinra falls silent and waits a second before he opens the door anyway. "Sorry. I need to check your injuries now that you're awake."

Izaya fixes his gaze on him, his wet eyes blazing with anger and humiliation. "Check them later."

"Just sit still," Shinra tells him, unperturbed. His face is carefully blank even though Izaya had expected him to be smiling as usual. He pulls up a seat by the bed and sits, uninvited.

Izaya turns his head away.

Next to him, Shinra sighs. "Please look at me. I have to change the dressing on your face."

Izaya doesn't move.

" _Izaya_. Don't make me force you."

Izaya bites his lip and then turns to face him reluctantly, fixing him with a glare so that Shinra knows how annoyed he is with him being in the room. He notices then that Shinra is dressed in his usual shirt and lab coat again, rather than the pyjamas he had been wearing when they met in the street. The bandages are gone from around his head and the only sign of his previous injuries is the cast on the bottom half of his leg.

"How long was I—"

"About four days," Shinra answers, his voice lacking all emotion. "You've been in and out during that time."

Ignoring the look Izaya gives him, Shinra touches the bandage on his face lightly with the tips of his fingers. "Does it hurt if I touch it like this?"

Izaya closes his eyes against the burn of Shinra's gaze on him, too close as always. "Not really," he answers hoarsely.

"Okay, that's good," Shinra says. "I'm going to take the bandage off and clean the cut, alright?"

"Fine."

The bandage comes off easily, still wet and loose from Izaya's tears. Shinra makes quick work of it and Izaya does a good job of not flinching every time Shinra touches his face in that gentle way.

"You're lucky this didn't need stitches," he says. "It might scar a little but it'll fade."

Izaya doesn't respond. It's difficult to even look at him, knowing that Shinra is the only person who knew what his true intentions were that night. It feels a lot like guilt, sitting heavy on his heart. Like getting caught doing something he shouldn't.

Surprisingly, Shinra takes a tissue and dabs lightly at the drying tear marks on Izaya's face. "It hurts, doesn't it?" he says in a detached voice. "Not getting what you want."

So Celty is really gone. There had been part of him that had wondered if it was really true – after all, Celty loved Shinra. Surely getting her head back couldn't have changed that? But Shinra's expression is tight and pinched and if Celty were still here he certainly wouldn't look like that.

Izaya opens his mouth to ask about it but Shinra beats him to it.

"I think we both have things we'd rather not talk about right away," he says, getting to his feet. "So if you don't ask about that then I won't ask about… _that_."

Ah, Izaya thinks disconnectedly. That's fair enough.

"I should really check on your arms," says Shinra, still distant. "I couldn't do an x-ray when you got here but we'll have to do it soon now that you're awake. I suspect they're broken in more than one place and it would be best if I knew where."

Dread plunges through him. It's as though he can already feel the ghost of pain that would come from someone touching them. "Do you have to?"

A flicker of sympathy passes across Shinra's face. "I know it's painful, but—"

Izaya shakes his head and looks back down at the bed sheet.

Shinra frowns. "Izaya, I need you to be honest with me because it's the only way I can assess the damage that's been done. Where else hurts? Your chest?"

He realises that at some point since he got here, Shinra has started calling him by his first name. No honorifics. A display of intimacy. Is that how he referred to Izaya when he wasn't around, too?

"Breathing hurts," he says slowly. "But I don't think my ribs are broken."

"You're right," he replies. "They're bruised badly but not broken. They'll heal. We'll check on them too just in case there are any underlying complications. The stab wound on your side?"

He looks down. "The knife… Who took it out?"

Shinra's mouth is a flat line. "I did. You're lucky it was held inside you until you got here or you would have bled out long before you made it up those stairs." He doesn't mention it but Izaya knows he must have seen the tendrils of black shadow that secured it there so that he could make it here alive.

"Ah," is all he says in response. "It's painful. As you would know, remember?"

"Barely." Shinra doesn't so much as look at him. "That was so long ago now."

Izaya glances away, thoroughly rebuffed.

"The knife wasn't Shizuo-kun's doing, was it?" Shinra presses forward, unheeding to Izaya's hurt glower.

"No," he says, unable to hide his disdain as much as he wishes to mask it with a smile. "That female Russian assassin got there before he could finish it."

A flash of something dark and ugly passes across Shinra's face but it's gone before Izaya can make any sense of it.

"You stitched it up too?" he asks.

Shinra seems to deflate a little. "I did it all," he says, averting his eyes like receiving praise or thanks for it is the last thing he wants.

Izaya nods. "But your leg…"

He shrugs in response. "Really, it's nearly healed by now. It's not particularly difficult for me to get around any more. The broken bones weren't the problem. I kept reopening my other wounds by accident." His smile is somewhat wistful before his expression shifts, sliding into something that looks a lot like apprehension. He suddenly can't seem to meet Izaya's eyes. "What… What about your legs? Is there any pain?"

"I…" Izaya pauses. He hadn't noticed any pain in his legs because of the combined pain of his upper body injuries. "They don't hurt. Shinra. They—"

It's not that they don't hurt. It's that he can't seem to feel them at all.

Shinra bites his lip.

"Shinra," he says, intending for it to come out as a reprimand. Instead, his voice cracks because he only has to look at Shinra's face to get his answer.

"I'm sorry." Shinra looks down at his clasped hands. "I had a thought when I saw you during the fight. I… had hoped that I was wrong."

"Shinra," he says desperately, because it's the only thing he can say. Because anything else would hurt far too much.

Shinra closes his eyes. "Can you describe to me how your legs got injured?"

Izaya shakes his head, feeling it spin under the medication that still lingers at the fringes of his mind. "No… I got hit by Sh—" He stops, heart pounding, and then rewords it. "There was scaffolding that hit me across my back. I woke up in an office block and I thought they were broken because they hurt so much. But I could move. I _had_ to keep moving." He stares down at his lap. Through the lump in his throat he asks in a small voice, "Why won't they move now?"

"I think." Shinra clears his throat. "Have you heard of hysterical strength?"

Izaya chokes out an empty laugh. "You know I have. That's what _he_ —"

"Yes. Well." Shinra sighs. "I think it's something similar. You had to keep moving because it was… well, it was life or death. But once the adrenaline wore off, your body…"

Izaya shuts his eyes. "That's enough."

"Izaya—"

"I said that's _enough_ ," he repeats, his voice rising in pitch. "Please just leave me alone for a while." He turns his head and looks out of the window next to his bed. A clear dismissal. He hears Shinra move the chair and then the door clicks quietly behind him as he leaves.

It's evident from the lack of footsteps leading away from the bedroom that Shinra hasn't actually left but Izaya can't find it within himself to care. If Shinra is standing behind the door waiting on some kind of explosive reaction from him then he can take it.

He has only experienced true heartache a couple of times in his life but this outweighs them all. It feels like someone has reached inside of him and twisted mercilessly. He may not be a doctor but he's not an idiot. The second the metal pole hit him across the back the damage had been done. If it had happened to anyone else he would have marveled at how fragile the human body really is.

But it hadn't.

It happened to him, and none of it feels real at all.

_I can't walk_ , he says to himself, and repeats it, like that will make it more real. _I can't walk. I can't run. I can't move like I used to._ Clenching his jaw, he doesn't try to stop the tears of anger that slip down his face. He can't jump fences like he used to, or tread carefully along the edges of roofs. The illuminated rail yard at night, the thrill of the chase. Ikebukuro from the rooftops, spread out in front of him, his for the taking. Everything, all of it, no longer within his reach.

A sob shudders past his lips, despite how he fights to hold it back. He knew that if he somehow came out of the fight alive there would be a price to pay but he didn't imagine it would be _this_ , this hollowing sense of loss that threatens to overwhelm him completely. More tears slide down his cheeks until he's crying loudly, hunched over on himself and hating the clear sky outside that taunts him. Every inhale jars his ribs painfully but he can't bring himself to hold it back any more.

Finally, Shinra's footsteps lead away from the door. Beneath the tears Izaya feels a spark of gratitude that Shinra didn't barge in again and instead chose to give him privacy to grieve. He can't even bring himself to feel an ounce of embarrassment any more.

He falls back asleep eventually, his face tight with dried tear tracks. It's not the empty relief he had hoped it would be. The drugs have faded enough that the respite of a dreamless sleep is out of his grasp. His dreams are turbulent, fragmented. A flash of yellow, a sheet of red. Iron behind his tongue and the ground beneath his back.

The shuddering scrape of metal on gravel. A thousand eyes, a judgment. And then, finally: Heiwajima Shizuo, the crack of bone on bone. Screaming pain and the dizzying fear of falling and—

"Izaya." There's the warm press of a hand on the curve of where his neck meets his shoulder. Louder, " _Izaya!_ "

His eyes fly open and for one disorientating second he thinks he's going to throw up. Shinra's hand withdraws from his sweat-slick skin like he's been burned. His eyes are dark, and maybe that's something like fear lurking within them, but Izaya can't quite put the pieces together just yet.

"Izaya," Shinra says again, clearer now. He presses his hand against Izaya's back and helps him into a sitting position, adjusting the pillows behind him. "Are you okay?"

"Yes," he replies by default and then hesitates. "No. I don't know. What's—"

Shinra is already turning away. "Did you dream about it?"

"It." Something like a distorted laugh scrapes its way out of Izaya's dry throat. It seems like neither of them are able to give it the name it deserves. He shuts his eyes and sees the flicker of yellow mingling with red behind his eyelids. Sweat slides down the back of his neck. He's angry, somehow angrier than he's ever felt in his life. So much so that he could yell from it or cry from it.

"Are you in a lot of pain?" Shinra asks, glancing back and seeing the tears on his face.

"Yes," says Izaya, because it's easier than explaining the alternative.

Shinra lets out a sigh. "There's a limit to how much I can give you. Plus you know how illegal narcotics are, even with my connections it isn't easy to obtain large amounts of them." At Izaya's lack of response, he opens his bag and produces two pills. "I can give you these but after this I'm going to have to start limiting you. I don't want to inadvertently cause an overdose."

Izaya stares at him, knowing exactly how terrible he must look. It gives him a brief thrill when he sees how distinctly unsettled Shinra appears to be in response. Regardless, he helps Izaya take the medication, still handling him in that gentle way but with an expression that contradicts his kindness entirely.

"Izaya, honestly—" He hesitates for a moment. "I think you should go to a proper hospital. I specialise in open wounds. There are things I don't know how to…"

Izaya clenches his jaw. "No. I don't want to go to a hospital."

"Don't be an idiot," Shinra reprimands him sharply. "Your arms are broken in multiple places and I don't have the technology to find out where. At this rate they could heal wrong. There's a chance they already _are_ healing wrong."

"So?" Izaya says. "You know other doctors like you who specialise in bones, don't you? Borrow their equipment."

"It's not that," Shinra snaps.

"Then what is it?"

"Your legs are _paralysed_ , Izaya! I'm entirely out of my depth here! I don't _know_ what the recommended treatment for someone in your situation would be – there are hundreds of factors to take into consideration. I can't even properly assess the damage." He takes a deep breath. "I'm just saying… At least think about it, alright? It could be the difference between your legs healing or…"

"Or not," Izaya finishes dully, the fight draining out of him as quickly as it came. "Fine. I'll consider it. Alright?"

Shinra nods and turns his back to him. He rummages in his bag a little more and then straightens up. "I have to call a colleague. Will you be fine if I leave you alone? You should try to rest more anyway."

"You're angry at me," Izaya observes. He doesn't know how it took him until now to work out. It's plain as day in the tight lines of Shinra's body, the way he won't fully look at him.

"I'm not." Shinra still doesn't face him.

"You are," he replies bitterly. "You can barely look at me. Is it because I came here instead of going somewhere else? If it bothers you that much I can leave. That was my original plan anyway."

"It's not because of that," says Shinra, his voice flat. "You've never cared about burdening me in the past so don't pretend to start now."

Izaya's eyes widen. "Then tell me what the problem is."

Shinra's shoulders rise and fall in a sigh. "It doesn't matter."

"I can't stay here if you won't even _look_ at me."

Shinra snaps his bag shut with more force than necessary before he finally turns to look at Izaya. It's only then that Izaya looks at him, properly _looks_ at him. Shinra's face is drawn and pale with prominent dark circles ringing underneath his eyes. His white coat is creased like he slept in it and his hair seems like it hasn't been either washed or brushed in days. The way he stands, shoulders slightly drawn in on himself, hints that all of his injuries haven't healed like he said they had.

He looks as exhausted as Izaya feels.

"How can you not know?" Shinra asks hopelessly. "I had what I thought was my last conversation with you and I couldn't give you any reason not to die. You said _sorry_ and then you _left_ to go and make a murderer out of Shizuo-kun! You left me standing there thinking that you had gone to make sure you died that night! Do you have any idea what I—"

He sucks in a breath and stares at the floor. "Then you show up here with Kine, almost dead, and I had no idea if I could even keep you alive. I had to pull a _knife_ out of your body. There was so much blood that I thought you would bleed out in my hallway. So yes, Izaya. I'm angry at you. You put me through hell and I was so—" Shinra turns his face away and mumbles the last word, like it's a secret, like he doesn't want Izaya to hear it. " _Scared_."

By the end of it, Izaya can't disguise the shaking of his hands. Shinra caring, Shinra _worrying_ , Shinra doing everything he could to keep Izaya alive despite being injured himself—he would be lying if he claimed to know how to process this information.

"I'm sorry," he says quietly. "Shinra, I'm—"

But Shinra merely holds up a hand to stop him. "Don't apologise. I can't forgive you yet."

Izaya nods. The irony of doing something that even Shinra can't forgive is not lost on him, but if that's how he feels then Izaya knows he has to find it within himself to respect that. "Okay."

"Now." Shinra straightens up and brushes down his lab coat. "I have to go and make that phone call. I'll be back soon." He leaves the room, giving Izaya one last indecipherable glance before he closes the door behind him.

Once he's certain that Shinra has actually left him alone this time, he leans his head back until it touches the wall behind him and sighs, staring blankly at the ceiling. He can't summon the energy to shed any more tears over the current state of his body. What's done is done, he thinks, and maybe if he repeats it enough then he'll start to believe it.

His gaze slides towards the window. It's a clear day in Tokyo, the city stretching on forever in front of him. The windows of the skyscrapers glitter in the sunlight. If it were any other time he might have even admired the view. Now, it holds nothing for him. Ikebukuro no longer feels like home. It unsettles him that he can feel like an alien in the city he grew up in. It's a different city now, one more closed off and less accessible to him.

Something else that has slipped from his grasp.

Some part of him wishes that Shinra would come back into the room so he at least has something to do. But Shinra isn't the same either. He looks older. His demeanor is darker and he hasn't seen him smile once since he got here. The loss of Celty must have sent him reeling and yet he's barely mentioned it or given any indication that it happened at all.

That's where they're similar. They would both rather lie about a problem's existence than face it head on.

He lets out a slow breath, ignoring the ache in his ribs. The other part of him wants to never have to see Shinra again. It would have been better, easier, if he had just disappeared from Tokyo, leaving behind nothing but the echo of his name. Orihara Izaya, informant of Shinjuku. The tiger's skin; an urban legend.

He wants to ask Shinra about Celty, about what he did that could push her into leaving him behind. There is a lot Shinra is capable of: lying, blackmail, even murder, but he would never do any of those unless Celty gave him reason to. Just how dirty did his hands get?

And part of him even wants Shinra to ask him about that night. About the fire, about the scaffolding, about what was going through his head as he ran towards Shizuo. He doesn't have the words yet and he's nowhere near ready to face what he did but if Shinra were to ask then he knows he would try.

He must drift off again because the next thing he knows it's dark outside and he's woken to the sound of Shinra softly padding through the room and picking up his bag. He blinks blearily as Shinra straightens up, moonlight caught in his hair.

"What're you doing," he mumbles, screwing up his eyes at the harsh light pouring beneath the door.

"Another patient," Shinra says in a low voice, and then reaches over to tug the curtains by the bed shut. "Go back to sleep, it's late."

Izaya glances at the clock on the bedside stand. Eleven at night. He wonders tiredly if Shinra is even going to make it to bed at this rate. "You should sleep too," he murmurs, eyes already closing.

A hand through his hair, so light he might have dreamt it.

"Goodnight, Izaya." The door shuts somewhere distantly and Izaya falls back asleep.

The next time he wakes it's to searing red behind his eyelids. His breath won't come properly and his heart is beating so fast he thinks that this time he really is going to die. The room shifts before his eyes, mutating into something threatening, pitch darkness distorting itself into every nightmare he's ever had.

He drags in air noisily, heat-red pain lancing through his ribs and down his arms. It's not enough to know exactly what's happening to him if he can't do a single thing to stop it. He tries to straighten himself into a sitting position as best as he can and concentrates on trying to control his breathing. It shouldn't be this hard, it shouldn't be so difficult to just breathe properly—

In and out, he reminds himself. One hand has already started to tingle with numbness. In and out, in and out, in and out. He closes his eyes and sees yellow. In and out. He concentrates on transforming the peroxide yellow into something else, something familiar – the yellow of police tape at a crime scene that meant something interesting had happened; the glow of street lamps at dusk; the yellow flower that bloomed on the cactus in the biology club.

In and out. In and out.

His breathing steadies, slowly. The crushing panic has lifted from his chest even though his head is still littered with the remnants of nightmares. He opens his eyes again, his vision adjusting to the darkness of the room. It's five in the morning according to the clock next to him. Despite how long he slept his eyes still sting like he's been up for two days straight, but going back to sleep right now is the last thing he wants to do.

A soft knock sounds at the door. "'Zaya?" comes Shinra's voice, blurred with sleep. "Ev'rything okay?"

He glances at the door in surprise. "Fine," he replies, and it comes out steadier than he thought it would.

The door opens and Shinra sticks his head in. He isn't wearing his glasses and his hair is mussed, like he just woke up seconds before. "You're sure?"

"Everything's okay. Go back to bed."

Shinra nods, letting himself be convinced, and closes the door behind himself. The darkness is more comforting now that his vision has adjusted. He thinks about Shinra saying his name like that, tired and concerned, and wishes in time with the erratic pulse of his heart that he'd ran far away from Tokyo when he had the chance.

Reluctantly, he lets the ticking of the clock lull him back to an uneasy sleep with that thought playing over and over in his head.


	3. Chapter 3

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> "So you're saying we bring out the worst in each other?" Shinra raises his eyebrows.
> 
> Izaya has stacks of proof of all the times he's sunk to the lowest low for Kishitani Shinra's sake neatly filed away in his brain, but he'd rather not dredge each and every memory up right now.
> 
> "I don't care if you act your worst around me. That's the reason I became your friend in the first place. Even back in middle school when you said you wanted to love even if it meant hurting others… I knew exactly what kind of person you were."
> 
> "You're so weird," says Shinra.

When morning comes, Izaya is woken by the sound of Shinra's front door bell chiming. There's a scurry of footsteps as Shinra runs to answer it before whoever it is can ring again. He cracks his still aching eyes open and realises that he fell asleep sitting up, propped against the pillows. There's a crick in his neck that stings when he moves but it's somewhat refreshing to feel pain that isn't piercing agony from one of his injuries.

He can hear Shinra speaking in a hushed voice with whoever is at the door but even when he strains his ears he can't make out what they're saying. Then Shinra's voice comes louder: "Wait a minute, I'll check."

He hears movement again and then there's a knock at the door. "Izaya? Are you awake?"

"You can come in," he replies, his voice still dry from sleep.

Shinra comes in and shuts the door behind him. "How do you feel?" he asks as he opens the curtains, letting the morning light spill into the room.

"Fantastic," he says wryly.

Shinra shoots him a pointed look. "Ha. If you're capable of making jokes then you can have guests."

"Guests?" Izaya hesitates. An array of options flash through his mind: Namie; Kida Masaomi or Mamiya Manami come to finish him off; Shiki; Heiwa—His breath catches. Dread claws its way up the back of his throat.

"Izaya!" Shinra's hand presses against his, bringing him back to earth. A spark of pain leaps up his arm at the sudden contact. "You have to breathe. Can you do that?"

Izaya nods.

"In and out, okay? Just copy me."

He closes his eyes and copies Shinra's breathing by sound alone.

"That's good," says Shinra. "Kine is here but I can tell him to leave if you don't want to see him."

"Kine?" Izaya repeats in weak surprise. "No, it's fine. I'll speak to him."

Shinra eyes him in concern. "Are you sure—"

"I'm sure," he interrupts, his voice regaining some strength to it. "You can send him in."

For a split second it seems like Shinra is going to protest but then he gives Izaya a brief nod and stands up. "Okay. I'll let him know." His hand lingers on the door handle. "You know if Shizuo-kun turned up here that I wouldn't let him in, right? As long as you're still here, even if it's an emergency, I'd tell him to go somewhere else. You're both my friends but you came to me first."

Izaya looks away. "Thanks," he mutters, but the sincerity of it rings true.

Shinra bites his lip in hesitation before slipping out of the room. He speaks to Kine quickly in a voice so low Izaya can't make out what's being said, and then there's another knock on the bedroom door.

"Come in."

Kine does, closing the door behind him and taking a seat by his bedside. There's a long stretch of silence that fills Izaya with a tense unease, a chill shooting down his back. Then Kine sighs, looking much older than his age as he does so. He knows Kine hasn't lived an easy life by any means. He's known that since he was a teenager, sitting in Kine's car after a fight and persuading him to introduce him to the Awakusu-kai as an informant. Back then, he had looked tired. But now, Kine looks – drained.

"I'm glad you made it," Kine says finally, the familiar cigarette-rasp of his voice setting Izaya at ease. "We weren't sure if—"

Izaya tightens his jaw.

"But Shinra did good work," he continues, his gaze dragging briefly over Izaya's face and lingering on the bandaged cut. "By the end of it I thought he was going to collapse from exhaustion but he pulled through. He really is a great doctor for his age."

 _Shinra did good work_. There it is again, the reminder that Shinra drove himself into the ground worrying and trying to fix Izaya's broken body. The image of him that night comes to mind: pale-faced, desperate, jaw clenched with an emotion Izaya had never seen him wear before. Goosebumps shoot along his arms. He has never uncovered so much about Shinra in such a short space of time since that sun-bleached day in the biology room. Just what else is there to learn about?

"You stayed?" he asks in a weak attempt to divert the subject away from Shinra.

Kine runs a hand over his face. "Yeah. I did. Until we knew you were going to survive."

"But being in Ikebukuro is dangerous for you," he points out.

Kine fixes him with a long look, like Izaya is still the child he was nearly ten years ago. "It's dangerous for you as well, like this."

A cruel laugh bubbles out of him uncontrollably, leaving him gasping for breath seconds later. "As if I care about that now," he manages to say, flinching away from Kine's hand; outstretched, wanting to help.

For the first time, Kine just looks sad.

"It really is like Shinra said," he says, more to himself than to Izaya.

Izaya has a very good idea of what Shinra might have said and no desire to hear it said out loud.

Kine sighs and looks at him with that world-weary expression on his face again. "Izaya, I stayed because I care whether you live or die. I was willing to drive you out of Tokyo and stay with you there until you had recovered enough to be on your own again. Your friend worked hard to keep you alive because he cares too. I tried to pay him and he refused to take the money."

Izaya recoils a little. "I didn't ask for any of that."

Finally, a small smile appears on Kine's face.

He narrows his eyes. "What's so funny?"

"Nothing," says Kine. "It's just… You claim to study humanity and to love humans, right?" At Izaya's brief nod, he continues, "Then shouldn't you know from your observations of other people that it's not something you have to ask for?"

The breath that stutters out of him is beyond his control. Kine places his hand gently on Izaya's shoulder, so soft that the pain that comes is not physical. This time, he does not flinch away.

Though neither of them would admit it, they both know that from the very beginning Kine has watched out for Izaya. It's the reason he had so much leeway in who he sold information to, although his ties were for all intents and purposes to the Awakusu-kai. At seventeen, he had been charming and silver-tongued, brimming with the invincibility of youth and new money. If it hadn't been Kine who bound him to the Awakusu-kai then he could have been in a whole lot of trouble.

"You're leaving Ikebukuro after this, aren't you?" Izaya observes quietly.

Kine's hand slips from his shoulder at last. "I have business elsewhere that I've put off attending to."

Izaya nods. "Are you coming back?" he asks, and then in such a small voice that he hates himself for it, "Ever?"

"I'm coming back," Kine confirms.

The relief that washes over him feels a lot like happiness. "Okay."

Kine gives him another small smile as he gets to his feet. "Take care of yourself," he says with sincerity. At Izaya's lack of response, he says, "And talk to your friend. I think he'd be happy to listen, at least."

"I'll try."

He nods. "Then I'll see you soon. Remember I'm only a phone call away." He doesn't say _goodbye_.

"Yeah," Izaya agrees, the word scraping its way out of his throat at all the implications 'see you soon' carries. "See you soon."

Kine lightly touches his shoulder again before he leaves. Out in the hallway, Izaya can hear him say a quick farewell to Shinra before the front door opens and closes. There are a few minutes of silence and then another knock comes at the door. This time, Shinra doesn't wait for him to answer before he lets himself in. His medical bag is slung loosely around his shoulder.

"I have to change the dressing on your side," he says.

Izaya hesitates before he agrees, the memory of blade-sharp pain lurching through him. "Fine."

"Sorry," Shinra adds as an afterthought, not looking at Izaya as he puts his bag down on the dresser in the corner and rummages through it.

"Not your fault," he murmurs, his gaze sliding to the window. It's raining today, drops of water spattering off the glass and sliding down in rivulets. Shinra's lack of a response almost goes unnoticed, dissolving into the precipitation beyond the window. If Izaya were anyone else, he might even let it slide. But everything clicks into place: Shinra's fear, his anger, his desperation. He suddenly understands.

"You do," he says to Shinra's still-turned back.

"Do what?"

"Think it's your fault," he replies.

There's a long pause where Izaya can hear nothing but the quick intake of breath from the other side of the room.

"You don't think I'm at least partially responsible for this?" Shinra asks eventually. He still faces away from Izaya. Izaya wishes he would turn around. The part of him he can't shut down longs to know what guilt looks like when Shinra wears it. He wants to know what every emotion looks like on Shinra's face.

"No," he says bluntly.

There's a quiet, trembling laugh and the thud of a fist on wood. "I introduced the two of you. I laughed and said it couldn't be helped when you started fighting each other. I told you that it would end with one of you dead and I still did _nothing_."

Izaya takes a deep breath. "I could have stopped provoking him any time I wanted."

"Doesn't matter," Shinra says, his voice still tight. "I could've… I didn't…"

There are a million ways he could reassure Shinra right now but it's unlikely that he'll respond well to any of them. Instead, he settles for saying, "You have to stop this."

"It's not that easy."

"I know that," Izaya says in a voice so sharp it could cut glass. "There wasn't anything you could have done that would have prevented this. Not at the start and definitely not at the end. I made my choice and he made his too. We all have to live with it."

"And will you?" Shinra turns to face him, finally. Even after this, after everything, the guilt on his face still makes Izaya ache in some place he can't bring himself to name. His lips are bitten raw, a hazy purple from lack of sleep curving beneath his eyes. But still he manages to look at Izaya like he can see straight through him. Every secret, every lie. Every falter, every fall. "Live with it."

Izaya exhales through his nose. "I can't answer that yet."

"That's what I was afraid of hearing." Shinra shakes his head and grabs the bandages from his bag with such force he nearly sends it spilling to the ground.

"Shinra…"

"Don't say anything else," he says tiredly, taking the seat next to Izaya. His fingers loosely tug at Izaya's off-white gown until the bandaged area is visible.

"Shinra."

"I said _don't_." Shinra's voice tightens around the final word, clipping the syllable at the end in a way that should leave no room for negotiation.

But Izaya has always managed to find the room anyway, every hole in Shinra's defense. " _Shinra_. When was the last time you slept?"

Shinra suddenly busies himself with his hands, peeling the bandage from Izaya's side with delicacy. Even so, Izaya still hisses as the edges of it tug on the stitched-up skin. "Last night."

"For—how long?" Izaya asks, broken by another sharp inhale at the pain. He glances down. The wound looks as he expects it to, painful but lacking the fiery red of infection.

"Does it matter?" Shinra says, preparing a clean bandage. Even Izaya finds it impressive the way his hands still don't tremble. Shinra glances up to meet his steady gaze. "Fine. Three or four hours, I don't know."

He covers the injury with the new bandage, his fingers pressing it as lightly as possible to Izaya's side. The brush of Shinra's fingers against the familiar ache of the stab wound – Izaya swallows, mouth suddenly dry.

"You need to take care of yourself too," he says quietly, because he thinks it's something Shinra needs to hear. Shinra has always kept himself in good health, partly due to being a doctor and partly due to Celty's influence and insistence. But with one of those factors removed it seems like he has no idea what to do.

If Shinra can care for him by pushing his own body to its physical limit then Izaya has to at least try to repay the favour.

"I am," says Shinra.

"You're not," he replies flatly. "Don't bother trying to argue. If you want to sleep for a few hours you can leave me alone. I'm won't – I'm not going to _do_ anything."

Shinra sighs. "How do I know that for sure?"

A small smile rests on Izaya's mouth. "Guess you'll just have to trust me."

Shinra nearly laughs. "That's asking a lot."

"I wouldn't lie," he says seriously. "Not about this."

Shinra's gaze falls over Izaya's face, searching for some hint of dishonesty, some indication that Izaya is dealing in the half-truths that he usually does. He doesn't find it. "Okay," he agrees. "I'll trust you."

The words are so straightforward that Izaya is momentarily taken aback. Trust is the one thing of Shinra's that he has never been able to fully have. Yet Shinra is here, right in front of him, trusting Izaya with his guilt, his regret.

The emotion that swells through him is nearly too much to bear.

"Can I ask you something?" he says in a soft voice.

Shinra hesitates. "It's about that night, isn't it? About Celty?"

"Can I?" he repeats quietly.

"Alright."

"Why did she leave?"

Shinra shakes his head. "I did something that I knew was terrible."

Izaya leans forward a little, wincing as his side flares with pain at the sudden movement. "But she loves you," he says, and the words are more difficult to say than he expected. Various scenarios fly through his mind, each of them worse than the last. He's known Shinra too long. None of his darkest ideas would be impossible for Shinra to carry out. "What could you possibly have—"

"She got her head back," says Shinra evasively. "At last."

He frowns. "I know that. Did she really leave because of that?"

Shinra gives him brittle smile. "No. It's what I did after that made her leave."

Realisation hits him. "You cut it back off."

"I did." His hands clench into fists on his lap. "I knew it was awful. I knew there was a possibility she would never forgive me. But I never thought she would actually leave me."

"But how did you…" Izaya pauses. "The first time Saika was used to do it so—" He eyes Shinra closely. "Tell me you didn't. Tell me you don't have that _thing_ in this apartment."

"I do," he admits. "It's in the other room. Safe."

"Sonohara Anri would never let anyone have it. So… Kujiragi Kasane gave it to you?"

"Not quite. I'm renting it from her."

"You can _rent_ Saika now?" asks Izaya in disbelief.

Shinra nearly laughs, his mouth twitching at the corners. "When you put it like that it does sound a little ridiculous."

Izaya stares at him. "You know you're a doctor, right? You cut people open for a living. You—operated on _me_ —"

"It's okay, it's fine." He waves a hand. "Don't worry. It's in the form of a scalpel that I don't use for surgeries and I'm hoping to give it back to Kujiragi sooner or later. I have no need for something like that and it's probably for the best that my father doesn't find out that I've got it. You really hate Saika, don't you?"

Izaya scowls. "Humans are mine to love. I don't want to compete with a sentient demon sword. I hate to say this but Saika is best off in the hands of Sonohara Anri than anyone else." An image of Shinra, red-eyed and vacant, comes to mind. It fills him with such nausea that he immediately quashes the thought before it can go any further. Something like Saika should never have been allowed to exist in the first place.

Shinra hums. "Anri-chan is definitely the most sensible option. She would never trust anyone else with it."

They sit in silence for a moment. Shinra opens his mouth to say something but then seems to think better of it and closes it again.

"So she's really gone," muses Izaya. "Interesting." Out of the corner of his eye he sees Shinra's face contort in pain, his brows pulling in and his jaw tightening.

"You shouldn't say it like that."

Izaya frowns. "Like what?"

"Like we're one of your little experiments." His voice is as light as always but there's an underlying bite to the words that raises the hairs on the back of Izaya's neck. "Celty isn't human and you've never considered me one. By that logic you shouldn't care about either of us." Shinra presses his lips into a thin line before continuing. "But that's always been a problem for you, hasn't it?"

"Are you trying to provoke me, Shinra?" Izaya asks warily. "Here? Now?"

"Have you ever considered yourself above provoking others when they're vulnerable?" Shinra responds.

Izaya's eyes widen. This is the first time he's ever seen Shinra truly irritated at him. At anybody. He's seen Shinra in pain, in desperation, but never has he seen him so aggravated. "You know I haven't."

"Then you should be able to take it," says Shinra coldly. "Shouldn't you?"

Izaya's hands tremble with the sudden anger that rises in his chest. It's a different form of anger than what he felt around Shizuo. That was heat-red and spurred on by adrenaline, by hatred. A fury that filled him to the brim with disgust that such a creature could dare to exist in this world. This is new, like he's been plunged into icy water. Like drowning. As his expression twists with it, he realises that the sting in his heart is betrayal.

How dare Shinra use the truth to hurt him, the same way Izaya has used the truth to hurt so many others?

"Sometimes I hate you so much I can hardly stand it," he says with as much venom as he can muster.

Shinra meets his gaze levelly. "Everything would be so much easier if that were actually true." He gets up and leaves the room, letting the door slam behind him. The noise reverberates through the apartment, through Izaya's head, and he feels overwhelmingly, achingly empty despite the frustration building behind his eyes.

 

/

 

A couple of hours later, Izaya has skimmed all six of the books that Shinra left him on his bedside table. Every single one of them is a horribly predictable romance that leaves him feeling somewhat disgusted. The headache still pulses unpleasantly behind his eyes and his arms have started to burn in pain with the effort of turning the pages. At least Shinra had the foresight to unhook him from the ECG machine so he doesn't have to listen to the defiant beating of his own heart.

Hunger starts to gnaw at his insides. He can't remember the last time he ate solid food. Part of him wants to swallow his pride and call for Shinra but the other more stubborn part of him is content to sit and stew in his anger.

 _That's always been a problem for you, hasn't it?_ How dare Shinra have the nerve to say something like that to him when Izaya has spent the last ten years carefully masking every hint of his feelings that wasn't entirely platonic. How dare Shinra articulate so casually what Izaya has spent the last ten years running from.

But Shinra has always had the courage to voice aloud that which Izaya could not.

He seethes with it. But then he closes his eyes and tips his head back, letting the wall support him. Shinra is hurting, too, he reminds himself. He is not the only one in pain here. It's obvious that Shinra isn't dealing with the loss of Celty properly and is instead channeling everything he has into Izaya. But he can only sustain himself like that for so long. Izaya knows that sooner or later it's going to catch up with him.

He has always wondered what it would be like to see Shinra break. Now, dread curls in the pit of his stomach at the thought of it. If Shinra were to break now then what would stop Izaya from doing the same?

He doesn't want to think about that.

The doorbell rings again. Izaya's heart beats faster at the sound. Even though Shinra had said he wouldn't let Shizuo in if he showed up, with how angry he currently is at him, Izaya wouldn't put it past him. Shinra is more than capable of such cruelty. Izaya just hopes that this time it won't be directed at him.

There's a click as Shinra answers the door. Almost instantly, Izaya can tell that it isn't Shizuo. The man's voice is pitched slightly higher and he's speaking politely to Shinra, as opposed to Shizuo's casual roughness. He lets out a breath of relief.

They speak for another few minutes before there's a knock at Izaya's door.

"Yeah?" he says, expecting it to be Shinra. Instead, a man he doesn't recognise walks in.

"Orihara Izaya?" he asks. Izaya nods. "My name is Watanabe Takahiro. I've heard a lot about you over the last few years."

Izaya narrows his eyes. The name sounds somewhat familiar but he can't place it. Then his eyes catch the bag held loosely in his hands, similar to Shinra's, and he nods in recognition. "You're another underground doctor. Based in Ueno, if my information is correct."

Watanabe gives him a quick nod. "That's correct. Shinra called me here because I specialise in bones. I understand that your arms are broken?"

Izaya watches him warily. "Yes."

"Can I be honest with you?" he asks, resting one hand on the back of the chair by Izaya's bedside.

"Why not," he says dryly. "I've been receiving bad news in spades lately so I'm sure one more thing won't make a dramatic difference."

Watanabe raises his eyebrows but otherwise doesn't comment on what Izaya said. "I'm here to perform an x-ray of your arms. However Shinra told me your accident happened around six days ago." He waits for Izaya to confirm that. "Six days is a long time when it comes to bone injuries like yours. There's a high chance they've already started to heal incorrectly. Shinra had no way of being able to tell what the damage was from the outside."

Izaya takes a slow breath. "And that means…"

"It means that your arms probably won't go back to how they used to be," Watanabe says, matter-of-fact. "There might be pain. The pain might be regular or it might only happen when you overexert yourself. It's too early to tell. But if you let me perform the x-ray then we have a better chance of working out how we can deal with it."

He sighs heavily. "Fine. Let's get it over with."

Watanabe nods. "Alright. My equipment is in my car so I'll be back in a second."

"I'll be right here," says Izaya, somewhat snidely. Watanabe gives no reaction as he leaves and something like disappointment rests ugly in Izaya's chest. Shinra's footsteps follow Watanabe's out of the apartment and into the elevator and for the first time since he woke up, he is entirely alone. The rain still lashes on the other side of the window; the clouds cover Ikebukuro in a blanket of grey.

It doesn't take long for the two doctors to return to the apartment. There are a couple of bangs and the sound of wheels on wood before Watanabe re-enters the bedroom. Izaya looks at him expectantly, waiting for Shinra to appear too, but then Watanabe closes the door behind him and rolls the machinery over to the bed.

The entire process is extremely uncomfortable and painful. First Izaya has to manoeuver himself into a sitting position and then turn himself around so that he's sitting on the edge of the bed. Without the support of his own legs, Watanabe has to guide him through it and even once they finally get Izaya into position, Watanabe's hand still has to press firm against his back to stop him from toppling over.

Shinra never appears.

They take the x-rays and after helping Izaya back into bed, Watanabe disappears to go and speak to Shinra, taking the equipment with him. With a sigh, he tips his head back and stares at the ceiling, trying his best to shut out the pain thrumming through each of his arms. He closes his eyes in exhaustion. Watanabe's expression as he surveyed the scans had been near inscrutable.

Their footsteps approach the bedroom door again and Izaya can finally make out what's being said despite their low voices.

"I'll tell him just now," Watanabe is saying.

"No," says Shinra, his voice coming out louder than Izaya thinks he intended it to. "I want to be the one to tell him."

"Alright," Watanabe agrees. "If there's nothing else you need then I'll be leaving."

"Payment will be with you by tomorrow," Shinra murmurs. "And the rental fee—"

"Consider the rental free of charge," he replies. "Just return it to me when you can. You've helped me out in the past so consider the favour paid back."

"Thank you," says Shinra sincerely. "I appreciate it."

"Take care of yourself," Watanabe says. "I'll see you later."

"Bye," says Shinra, voice low as he closes the front door. There's a beat of silence and then his footsteps reach the bedroom door. The knock comes softer than Izaya expected it to, based on their last conversation. "Can I come in?"

Izaya sighs. There really isn't any point in avoiding it. Not when they're both confined to the same living space for an indefinite period of time. At least the underlying bite seems to be gone from Shinra's voice. "Yes."

Shinra enters quietly, closing the door behind him. Before he takes a seat he gives Izaya a long look, like he's weighing him up or deciding how to choose his words. Izaya watches him warily before he sits down. He won't give Shinra the satisfaction of breaking the silence first.

"It's good news," says Shinra eventually, but he still won't meet Izaya's eye. "You got lucky. Your left forearm is broken in two places and your right is broken in three, but they're going to heal eventually. I thought maybe… that they were shattered or worse, but it looks like I set them as well as they could have been, all things considered."

Izaya lets himself breathe again.

"They won't be exactly as they used to be," Shinra continues. "Even a few years down the line you might have problems with heavy lifting. But as long as you don't exert yourself during the healing process there shouldn't be any complications."

He nods in response. "Thank you," he says carefully. "For letting me know."

Staring down at his hands clasped in his lap, Shinra says slowly, "I'm sorry."

Izaya waits.

"I shouldn't have—" Shinra starts. "It's not you I'm angry at. I shouldn't have taken it out on you. You didn't—" He pauses, his gaze still turned downwards. "You didn't deserve that."

Izaya's teeth dig into his bottom lip until the taste of iron bubbles onto his tongue. "How did we get here? It was never like this before."

"We grew up." Shinra gives him a wry smile, the first smile he's given him in hours. "It's only expected, isn't it?"

"It doesn't have to be." Izaya looks back at him. "You knew all about me back then. You were the only one. You still are."

Shinra looks mildly surprised that Izaya would say something so intimate with so much confidence, so little hesitation. Izaya can't blame him. It feels as though their previous argument made him braver. If Shinra can speak his mind, even with cruelty like that, then Izaya should be able to do so without fear as well.

"I haven't changed, Shinra."

A pained look crosses Shinra's face. "I know that."

"Then why—"

"You might not have changed," he interrupts, "but I have. Celty was half of me, and now she's gone."

In some odd way, Izaya understands. Shinra always let his obsession with Celty make up so much of his personality and habits without a care for what it might do to him if she ever left. Although he most likely never foresaw himself as letting Celty actually leave him.

"I get it," he says. "But I don't think you've changed at all."

"Then you're wrong."

He grins, and something in his mind clicks into place. "My observations are rarely wrong."

Shinra doesn't look convinced but he decides to humour him anyway. "Explain."

"Celty might be gone but you're still the same person," says Izaya. "Think about it. Wasn't there a certain version of yourself that you projected around her? You didn't want her to know who you really were, although she probably had her suspicions from the start. But if she knew for certain, she might leave. So you kept the darkest parts of yourself a secret. Am I right so far?"

Shinra doesn't answer that. "Go on."

It's the most he's spoken at one time in days. Dryness lingers unpleasantly in his mouth but he continues anyway.

"Something else has changed in the last few days too," he says. "I'm here. Stuck in your apartment. In your _guest bedroom_. You've always shown your worst parts to me because you knew they never bothered me, right from the start. Isn't it only natural that you feel like you've changed because suddenly the person who tried to be your best around has left and the person who knows the worst parts of you is now too close?"

He's almost out of breath by the end of it. A strange, muted euphoria climbs up the back of his throat.

"So you're saying we bring out the worst in each other?" Shinra raises his eyebrows.

Izaya has stacks of proof of all the times he's sunk to the lowest low for Kishitani Shinra's sake neatly filed away in his brain, but he'd rather not dredge each and every memory up right now.

"What I'm saying is—" Izaya leans forward, almost bumping noses with Shinra who draws back in flustered alarm. He does his best to ignore the pain that the strain of movement causes in the wound on his side. "I don't _care_ if you act your worst around me. That's the reason I became your friend in the first place. Even back in middle school when you said you wanted to love even if it meant hurting others… I knew exactly what kind of person you were."

"You're so weird," says Shinra. He meets Izaya's gaze and holds it before his eyes wander down to Izaya's lips. Izaya's heart is beating a little too fast; the palms of his hands are slippery with sudden sweat. It's like he can feel Shinra's proximity ringing through every corner of his body.

Shinra is so close. He—

"I know," says Izaya, cutting off his thoughts, and he kisses Shinra.

It's not romantic in the slightest. Shinra's glasses bump messily against his face as he leans further into it and then Izaya has to pull back after a second, gasping as the wound in his side flares in pain again.

Shinra wrinkles his nose and readjusts his glasses. "Izaya, you stink. You're having a sponge bath later and I'm going to wash your hair."

"Shinra, I'm—" The word sticks in the back of his throat but he forces it out anyway. "Sorry."

Shinra looks at him in confusion.

"I shouldn't have done that," he explains. "You just told me that you're still recovering from Celty leaving and I—shouldn't have done that." Even someone like him can understand that. It was unfair and he has to give Shinra a way out.

But Shinra just tilts his head, the frustration from earlier cleared from his expression. "You shouldn't have done it, you're right. But you did. And I didn't stop you, so what does that say about both of us?"

Izaya gives him a dry smile. He knows how he would answer that question in his head – _it says that maybe we waited too many years to do that_ – but he can't let himself say that. Selfishness is one of his most dominant traits but protecting Shinra has always come first, ever since the biology club, ever since Shinra's blood spilled freely across his hands.

"It says that we've both been through a lot recently and it could have been anyone that happened to be there," he says instead.

The hurt that flashes across Shinra's eyes is so quick that if he blinked he'd have missed it. But Shinra's voice is steady when he speaks, mild and collected as usual. "I'm not kidding about that bath."

For the first time in days, Izaya makes it out of the bed. Shinra carefully helps him into a wheelchair he claims to be renting from Watanabe and pushes him through to the bathroom. The apartment still looks exactly the same as it did when Celty still lived there. The only glaring difference is that only one of the pair of matching mugs they had custom made has been left out by the sink.

It makes him feel distinctly unsettled, like the feeling he'd get walking around Ikebukuro in the dead of night when nobody else was around. It's the same as it was before but he can't reconcile it in his head. After everything that's transpired in the last week it should look different. It shouldn't look as though nothing at all has happened.

"I set up a chair for you," says Shinra from behind him. "I don't know how much of your own weight your body can support right now but we can try it, if you're ready."

Izaya stares at the chair he's supposed to sit in. Getting into the wheelchair was hassle enough and every one of his injuries had screamed out in protest. He takes a breath. "Okay. Let's do it."

"You're sure?" Shinra asks, his hands still on the wheelchair's handles.

Izaya nods. "I'm sure."

Shinra steps round to the front of the wheelchair. "This is going to hurt again," he warns before he slides an arm around Izaya's waist.

"I know, shut up," Izaya bites out, concentrating on pushing himself up. "Just don't touch my arms or my chest and it'll be fine."

"You're not leaving me a lot to work with here." There's a hint of laughter in Shinra's voice but Izaya knows it's there to make them both feel better about this than actual mirth. After a few more minutes of struggling and cursing from Izaya, they manage to get him into the straight-backed chair.

He lets out a long sigh of relief as Shinra pushes the empty wheelchair back into the hallway.

"Don't get complacent," he says as he comes back in. "We have to do all that again to get you back into bed." He steps around to the back of the chair and loosens the tie on Izaya's gown, letting it slip down his back to expose his shoulders and chest.

"This is already embarrassing enough," Izaya mutters. "Let's just get this over with."

Shinra clatters around behind him and then leans forward to turn off the taps on the bath. "I'm going to use a cup to wash your hair, alright?"

"Fine," says Izaya. "I bet your shampoo is the cheap kind too."

Shinra laughs a little. "Tilt your head back or my cheap shampoo is going in your eyes."

"And I'm sure you'd take great pleasure in doing that." Izaya does as he asks anyway. The warm water through his sticky, greasy hair feels better than he would ever admit. Shinra runs his fingers through Izaya's hair, working through all the grime and blood that had been caught in it.

Unconsciously, Izaya lets his eyes close and for the first time in days, in weeks, he feels himself relax. Shinra hums as he works, which doesn't surprise him in the slightest. He rubs shampoo into Izaya's scalp and all the way out to the ends, his hands occasionally brushing Izaya's exposed neck and shoulders. It feels far too intimate, a kind of moment that he's never known before. His breath catches in his throat each time he feels the pads of Shinra's fingers on his damp skin.

"Izaya," Shinra murmurs from behind him.

"Mm?"

"I know we've been at odds with each other the last few days," he starts, hesitation clear his voice. "But you know you don't have to shoulder everything by yourself… right? If you want to talk about it you can. If you have nightmares you can shout for me and I'll come through."

Ah, so Shinra _has_ heard him at night. His eyes open again. "I know that."

"Then, will you?" he asks cautiously. "I want to help."

Izaya sighs. He knows the weight of Shinra's guilt is weighing heavy on him, and Shinra is not the kind of person who knows how to deal with such a thing.

"I'll try," he says. "And when I'm ready, I'll talk."

Shinra hums, satisfied with that answer. "Tilt your head back again."

Izaya looks up to the ceiling and feels Shinra begin to wash out the shampoo. He lets them just be like this for a moment before he says Shinra's name quietly.

Shinra makes a noise of acknowledgement.

"I really am sorry." He swallows. "It wasn't ever my intention to put you through what I did."

Shinra's hands stop for a second, one finger twirling round an errant strand of Izaya's hair. "I know."

"I just never thought it would actually affect you," he continues.

Shinra's hands freeze where they are.

"Shinra?"

"Ah—sorry," he says, quickly pulling his hands back from where they were tugging on Izaya's hair. "I just… We haven't been good friends to each other over the years, have we?"

Izaya's mouth curves into a frown. "You were always the one person I never pulled into my plans. You were always… above them. Not like everyone else. I could mess with anybody I wanted to. Except you."

Part of him wishes he could turn around and see what kind of expression Shinra has. The other part of him never wants to see that. He can still feel the ghostly press of Shinra's lips on his.

"You…" Shinra says, and stops. He's silent for a long moment before he says, "You've always thought of me in an unhealthy way. Whatever I say, you don't have to take it as gospel. I'm just a person."

Izaya shuts his eyes, feeling drops of warm water bead and drip down his bare back. The words send self-deprecation spiraling through him. He knows that. He knows it far better than Shinra thinks he does. But how can he possibly describe the kind of hold Shinra has had on him all these years? That everything he constructed himself into was because he wanted to be the way Shinra was when they first met? To have that detachment, that air of living in an entirely different world to everyone below him—he longed for it, agonisingly.

"You think I don't know that," he says quietly. "I always have."

"Then why did you keep doing it?" Shinra has given up the pretense of washing his hair now.

That one's easy. "Because I didn't want to let go."

"Of?"

He gives a bitter laugh that feels wrong coming out of his mouth. "You don't want me to answer that. Trust me."

"I do," Shinra insists.

Izaya shakes his head, water droplets flicking over his shoulders with the motion. "You've already guessed correctly anyway. You just want me to say it out loud."

"Is that so wrong?" Shinra asks softly. "To want it put in to words."

"Yes." He'll put a lot of things into words, but not that. Not yet. "Because that's not me."

That draws a laugh out of Shinra. "I suppose you're right." He rinses the last of the shampoo out of Izaya's hair, his fingers gently working through Izaya's scalp. "Alright, I'm done."

Disappointment floods through Izaya as Shinra pats the ends of his hair dry with a towel. They're both silent, Shinra concentrating on drying Izaya's hair and Izaya trying his best to ignore the chill that blooms across his exposed shoulders.

He tells himself it's just the absence of the warm water on the back of his neck that leaves him disappointed, but he knows it's not the water that he misses from his skin.

 


	4. Chapter 4

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> It's funny but he can still recall exactly the way Izaya looked at twelve years old, eyes rounded in surprise as Shinra pointed out that humans are living creatures too. At seventeen in anger as Shinra claimed that Shizuo will live on as an urban legend even after death, more out of the desire to draw a reaction out of Izaya than anything else. At twenty in twilit laughter as he snuck Shinra onto the roof of his university in the height of summer, fireworks from the festival blooming across the surface of the moon.
> 
> Izaya had said something, then, his face illuminated in gold and red, but the sound of the fireworks had drowned him out.
> 
> Shinra had gazed at the moon and thought of Celty.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I'm back from the dead! I was supposed to post this chapter last week but I ended up being hospitalised for emergency surgery and then subsequently spent four days at the mercy of the Japanese medical system. (Scarcely any English assistance, no strong painkillers and a LOT of waiting.) So this chapter is a little shorter than usual but I really wanted to post something regardless. 
> 
> This chapter is largely from Shinra's point of view which was as challenging as always! Also, the chapter count has jumped up a little but at this point it's a total guess - I have no idea just how long or short this is going to be in the end. 
> 
> Thank you to everyone who continues to comment!!!

Izaya was twelve the first time he broke into somewhere he shouldn't have.

The hospital should have been near impenetrable, and the outside surface of it was. It was a typically modern Japanese building with smooth walls, built in an area of the city with no buildings that had easy to access fire escapes around it. No obvious footholds, no escape ladders.

He stood with his head tilted back, eyes scanning the building for any weakness it might have offered. Then his gaze caught on the telephone pole reaching up to the fourth floor and his eyes narrowed in thought. A quick glance at his surroundings told him that he was alone. Even Ikebukuro quietens in the early hours of a Wednesday morning.

Five minutes later and his arms were burning with the effort of dragging his own body weight up the pole. Sweat beaded across his forehead as he inched past the second floor. He hesitated, sucking in a breath of the humid air that did less to refresh him than he hoped. Somewhere, a lone cicida sang.

He started climbing again. The wood was starting to dig into the skin of his hands unpleasantly and he found himself slipping back down a couple of inches. His fingers clenched harder around the pole and he concentrated more on working his way up. Just one more floor. It wasn't far. He'd come more than halfway already.

Finally, he reached the right floor. With enough momentum, he forced his body to stretch across the gap, one hand still wrapped around the pole. The window was cracked open, just enough for him to slip his fingers into the space and push quickly upwards. It slid open with no resistance and with the last of his strength he hauled his body through the gap, ignoring the way his arms screamed in protest. He toppled into the room inelegantly, slamming off the floor and gasping for breath.

"Orihara-kun," came Shinra's voice, as cheerful as usual. "You kept me waiting again."

"Next time you try climbing up a wall that's not meant to be climbed," huffed Izaya, pushing himself up from the carpeted floor. He looked over to the bed at Shinra, propped up against three flimsy pillows, his glasses shining eerily in the low yellow lighting. His face was nowhere near as pale as it had been as he bled out in the biology room, his blood spilling out across his white school shirt, the tiled floor, Izaya's trembling hands.

"No thanks!" He beamed. "I knew you would come eventually."

"How would you even know that?" asked Izaya, sitting down on the chair that was left by Shinra's bedside. "I could have given up halfway through trying to climb that damn wall."

Shinra shook his head, a secretive smile that Izaya couldn't decipher resting on his lips. "Because you aren't half as much of an enigma as you think you are. Orihara-kun is Orihara-kun. You don't do things by halves."

Izaya looked away. "Did you tell your father what happened?" he asked instead of acknowledging the previous statement. He lowered himself into the chair by Shinra's bedside. "Did you tell the woman you love?"

Shinra's smile became somewhat tender, his gaze softening. "I kept your secret."

"Thank—" he started before thinking better of it. With his gaze fixed firmly on the floor he said, "I'm sorry."

His chest had never hurt so much. Fear, guilt, the heavy cloying smell of blood in the air—

"It wasn't you who stabbed me," said Shinra.

"The gambling ring," he said. His throat felt like it was narrowing around each word, choking him, burying him under his own guilt and panic. "If I hadn't—Nakura would have never—"

"It wasn't you who stabbed me," Shinra repeated, quieter. "You didn't make me step in front of you." Reverting back to his normal pitch he said, "And besides, I got to play the hero in the end! Doesn't it make me look good to you?"

"You could have died, Shinra," said Izaya hoarsely. "Because of me, you really could have—And then what would—"

"But I didn't," Shinra interrupted. He sounded gentler than Izaya has ever heard him. Not for the first time that day, Izaya longed to cry. If Shinra was being this kind to him then he must have looked terrible. "Guilt doesn't suit you, Orihara-kun. What's done is done and it can't be changed. So you should let it go, okay?"

"I don't know how," said Izaya honestly. "I've never—" _Felt guilt like this before._

Shinra hummed. "Me neither. Maybe I never will." He smiled brightly at Izaya like admitting to a lack of guilt was a perfectly normal thing to say. Izaya wondered just how much it would take for Shinra to feel even an ounce of the guilt churning in his stomach right then.

"But I don't blame you for any of this," Shinra continued, his smile becoming distorted in the dim light, twisting into something wolfish. All teeth. "And you found it interesting, didn't you? You didn't expect Nakura to have a knife on him and you definitely didn't expect me to save your life. You were scared but I saw your face. You thought what I did was fascinating."

There was a crash as the vase of flowers on the bedside table shattered as it hit the floor. Izaya stared at the water soaking into the carpet and the ruined petals as the hand he had used to push it continued to shake.

Shinra looked at him levelly. "You better go before someone comes to investigate that."

Izaya nodded shakily as he stood up. He met Shinra's gaze unwillingly. "I—"

"Go, Orihara-kun," he said, not unkindly. "I'll see you when I come back to school."

"Okay," Izaya breathed. He hooked one leg out the window and didn't look back. Shinra continued to watch the curtains in front of the open window billow long after he left.

/

 

Shinra sighs as he mops up the remaining water on the bathroom floor, pushing it weakly towards the drain. Tiredness pulls at his limbs, and he can't forget the feeling of Izaya's wet hair slipping between his fingers and the heat of Izaya's mouth on his, more gentle and careful than he ever thought Izaya capable of.

He wants to do it again.

The revelation comes startlingly easily when he finally lets himself think it. The mop slips between his hands and drops to the ground, banging off the edge of the bath on the way down.

It's a different kind of want than the one he felt in middle school. That was curiosity, nothing serious. Celty had been the only option he had ever truly considered back then. His idling interest for Izaya had been nothing more than boredom. If the opportunity had ever arose then he would only have taken it until Celty began to return his feelings.

But now Celty is gone and Shinra doubts she's ever coming back. If he ever did something so selfish to Izaya, would he leave too?

He stares at himself in the bathroom mirror, his fingers gripping the each side of the sink. The purple bruises beneath his eyes stand out starker than they did a week ago. Something deep inside him aches. He thinks it might be guilt. Guilt or regret. All the time he wasted, all the things he should never have said…

He loved Celty. He _loves_ Celty. She's everything, she loved him too, but she never truly knew him for who he was.

Would Izaya leave too? No, because Izaya has always known exactly how deep Shinra's selfishness runs. He has always known it and he has always and unwaveringly stood by Shinra anyway. Even though Izaya never gained anything in return he has always and unwaveringly been in lo—

But Shinra can't think about that right now.

He has never hurt Izaya like he hurt Celty. But his fault never lay in hurting Izaya directly, not really. No, he had always been content to stand back and watch as Izaya's own emotions destroyed him from the inside out.

He doesn't want to be like that any more.

His knuckles turn white as he clenches his fingers around the sink. The image of Izaya from that night forces its way to the forefront of his mind. How sickly pale and clammy his skin was, the give of his legs as he finally collapsed in the hallway, the spattering of his blood on Shinra's pristine wooden floor.

Shinra had honestly thought that Izaya was going to die that night, right there with Shinra's trembling hands beneath him.

Swallowing down the bile that rises suddenly in his throat, he closes his eyes and finally lets himself appreciate exactly how much he didn't want that to happen. There's a sting in the corners of his eyes and for a split second he feels like he might actually cry. He opens them again and stares at his reflection one last time before straightening up.

When he goes back through to Izaya's room – and it's startling how quickly he's gone from thinking of it as the guest room to _Izaya's_ room – he's not surprised to see that Izaya has fallen back asleep. His chest rises and falls slowly and Shinra treasures the motion, fixing it firmly in his head. A sign of life, of hope.

He sits down on the chair that he left by the bedside earlier when he helped Izaya to finally eat something. Lightly, he rests his hand on Izaya's forehead. A normal temperature. Izaya mumbles something in his sleep, his eyelids fluttering, but he doesn't wake. It doesn't seem to be another nightmare, nothing that's going to leave him gasping for air when he wakes, so Shinra leaves it as it is.

His hand moves from Izaya's forehead down to the part of his right hand that lies exposed from the cast. His fingers twitch a little in Shinra's careful grip but otherwise he doesn't stir.

Less than a week ago Izaya set off on a suicide mission. The look on his face when Shinra grabbed his arm is still etched vividly into his memory. He doesn't think he'll ever be able to forget it. Less than a week again Izaya set off to die and now Shinra is here picking up the pieces because in his most vulnerable state Izaya couldn't bear to be taken anywhere else.

The thought sets the pit of Shinra's stomach on fire.

It's funny but he can still recall exactly the way Izaya looked at twelve years old, eyes rounded in surprise as Shinra pointed out that humans are living creatures too. At seventeen in anger as Shinra claimed that Shizuo will live on as an urban legend even after death, more out of the desire to draw a reaction out of Izaya than anything else. At twenty in twilit laughter as he snuck Shinra onto the roof of his university in the height of summer, fireworks from the festival blooming across the surface of the moon.

Izaya had said something, then, his face illuminated in gold and red, but the sound of the fireworks had drowned him out.

Shinra had gazed at the moon and thought of Celty.

Now, he gazes out of the window across the city, his hand around Izaya's, and thinks of what it might be like to kiss Izaya again.

The scent of soap and shampoo still clings to Izaya gently and his hair shines more like the way it used to. It looks like even the deep circles of tiredness around his eyes have receded a little. Now that he's eating again his skin has started to regain some of its usual colour. Even though he's still bed bound, physically he's beginning to look healthier and the worry in Shinra's heart settles into stillness.

However, Shinra has known from the start that the physical injuries would be the first to heal. The harder part will be what comes after.

He falls asleep without even realising it at some point because the next thing he knows there's a soft tapping on his hand. With great reluctance he forces his eyes open, nose scrunching at the persistant nudge at his wrist.

"Shinra?"

"Mmph," he replies eloquently and straightens up. Izaya is staring at him with a curious look in his eyes and Shinra realises then that he fell asleep with his head brushing the side of Izaya's legs, still motionless beneath the bedsheets. He then also comes to the realisation that he fell asleep holding Izaya's hand as gently as possible.

Izaya's cheeks are dusted red in a way that does not come entirely from the evening glow streaming through the window. "If you're going to sleep you should at least do it in your own bed."

"This is technically my bed too," says Shinra as he starts helping Izaya to sit up against the pillows. "It's not like you paid for it."

"No, and neither did you," Izaya responds cheekily. "Your father did."

"Details." Shinra waves a hand.

Izaya stifles a laugh.

"What?"

"Nothing, you just…" His smirk gets bigger. So achingly familiar that the very sight of it makes Shinra's chest grow tighter. "…Have the pattern of the bedsheets imprinted onto your face."

Shinra runs his fingers across his cheek. "Are you five years old?"

"No, it's just funny."

"Then why is your face still red?"

If possible, Izaya's face flushes even more. "No reason, it's just…"

"Just what?" Shinra presses.

"I'm hungry, go and make me more soup."

"Just _what_?" he asks again, part of him enjoying the way Izaya wishes to do anything that isn't finishing his sentence.

"Repulsive," Izaya says firmly. "Horrible. I can barely look at you."

Shinra grins as he gets to his feet. Almost entirely unconsciously, his right hand threads through Izaya's hair the same way as it did that first night as he tried to soothe him. "Okay, Izaya-kun. Whatever you say," he says, the words loaded with so much fondness that Izaya averts his eyes.

As Shinra leaves the room, he catches the secretly pleased expression on Izaya's face and smiles to himself too.

He stands at the stove, gently heating the miso soup from earlier and it's only then he remembers the real reason Izaya is even here in the first place. It had been so easy to forget, to fall into the old pattern in the hopes of receiving — something, some fragmented, cryptic indication of his true feelings.

Izaya has always lived his life in fear of and in respect of death. The mythology books on Valkyrie and various afterlives that lined the shelves in his apartment were proof of that. Shinra has always suspected that Izaya kept Celty's head as some kind of evidence that an afterlife could exist. He also has an inkling of what Izaya had planned to do with the head at some point, to push Ikebukuro into such chaos that a higher being was forced to interfere. All so he could secure a life in which he was never faced with non-existence.

Shinra always had faith in himself that he would be able to stop Izaya if it ever came to that.

But Celty is gone now, and her head is gone too. Izaya's grand plan fell to pieces the moment he decided that letting Shizuo kill him was an option worth considering.

If Celty hadn't left that night, Izaya would never have come to him. He knows this. Izaya never sought out emotional pain the way he chased after physical pain. If Celty hadn't left and Izaya had followed through with his half-formed idea of getting as far away from Tokyo as possible, would he have even survived the night? Shinra's heart races in anxiety at the thought.

On autopilot, he pours the soup into a bowl and carries it back through to Izaya's room.

Izaya scowls when Shinra sets the bowl down on the bedside table. "You should stop thinking about whatever is causing you to make that face," he says.

Shinra looks at him in surprise. "I'm not thinking about anything."

"Yes, you are," he says. "If you weren't thinking about anything then your face would look vapid like it always does."

"You're mean today," Shinra remarks. "You're feeling better?"

"Everything still hurts," he replies.

"I meant—" Shinra starts, but then thinks better of what he was about to say. "Never mind."

Izaya's eyes narrow in scrutiny and for the first time Shinra feels mildly uncomfortable under his gaze. "I had a dream earlier."

"Oh?" There's something of significance coming. Izaya is not the type to share meaningless information about his dreams. "What was it about?"

"When I visited you in the hospital in middle school," Izaya answers. "Do you remember?"

Of course he does. He can vividly recall the guilt etched into Izaya's features, the clear shattering of the vase as it hit the ground. The shaking of Izaya's hands, the glow of sweat on his forehead as he tried to control his emotions.

"I remember," he says.

"Do you remember what you said to me?" Izaya asks. Shinra remains silent, so he continues, "You told me that what's done is done and can't be changed. You said guilt doesn't suit me and that I should let it go."

Shinra waits and ignores the way that sweat beads across his closed palms.

"Guilt doesn't suit you, Shinra," says Izaya softly. "So you should let it go, okay?"

Shinra could almost laugh at the sudden ache that bubbles up inside of him. "You shouldn't be kind to me, Izaya," he says. "You know better than anyone that I don't deserve it."

"Then doesn't that make me the only person who can be kind to you?" Izaya asks. "The only person who really knows what you deserve?"

_The only person who accepts you for who you really are: the good, the bad, and everything else that comes with it._

Emotion wells through him like a flood. "I don't want to be like this any more," he admits, ashamed of the way his voice cracks. He has no right to complain in front of Izaya who was ready to give up everything, his life included; who very nearly lost everything in the end. Izaya, who will be bed bound for weeks, who might never walk again. But he continues, anyway, because Izaya is the only person who could possibly understand, the only person Shinra has shown every rotten part of himself to. "Not when this is what made Celty leave."

Izaya's fingers twitch and he tries to raise his arm – to touch Shinra, gently, finally? – before his face scrunches in pain and he lowers it again. " _I_ didn't leave."

The look Shinra gives him could cut sharp as a knife. "But you tried to."

Izaya hesitates then averts his gaze. "That wasn't anything to do with you."

"Then what was it about?" asks Shinra, lowering his voice. "Make me understand because I— _can't_."

Izaya takes a deep breath and then lets it back out, his eyes fixated on the ceiling. "Me. It was about me."

"What about you?" asks Shinra, his stomach already churning in anticipation of the answer.

Izaya continues to look determinedly away from him. "A lot of things. Things I couldn't accept. Things I didn't like. Fear. Anger. Loneliness. Nothing you don't already know."

Breathing comes hard to Shinra, like Izaya's words sucked all the air out of the room. He does know. He knows all too well how Izaya's reluctance to accept and face his own emotions could ruin him completely. And he had been content to watch it happen. He knew it was wrong but he never cared enough. If he had cared enough could he have prevented – _this_?

"It can't be changed," says Izaya flatly. "My current condition is evidence of that. I can't go back and alter my decision. I've accepted that."

"You've accepted—" Shinra gestures to Izaya's body, his legs. "— _This_? You're fine with not being able to walk again?"

"I didn't say I was fine with it," he replies, his mouth pulling down at the corners. "I said I had accepted it."

To Shinra, both of those sound like they should mean the same thing.

It's difficult to imagine Izaya being wheelchair-bound for the rest of his life. Difficult to picture Izaya being unable to climb to the furthest reaches of Ikebukuro, unable to sprint through the city with an agility that no other person possessed.

But that's reality now. Izaya's reality, and yet Shinra seems to be the one having the most trouble accepting it.

"You're a liar," Shinra says. "You can lie to yourself and the rest of the world but you can't lie to me."

Izaya looks at him tiredly, giving up with an ease that he never would have before. "Fine. I lied. Does it matter? Regret isn't going to magically heal me."

"No," agrees Shinra. "But if you start being honest with yourself then recovery is going to be much easier on you."

"I don't care if it's easy or not," he mutters, and he turns his whole face away from Shinra. "The physical injuries were an expected outcome. They don't matter. They're just an outward reflection of my failure."

Shinra feels nauseous at the way Izaya's voice sounds like it's dragging over a bed of nails, rough and catching in all the wrong ways. "Then what was unexpected?"

Izaya meets his gaze, finally, and Shinra sees red-burned sleepless nights, tension in every muscle, and the eternal struggle for air.

With a jerky nod of his head, Shinra says, "Understood."

He can treat Izaya's physical injuries, can set his arms to the best of his knowledge, sew up his side, and sterilise the laceration on his face, but he's out of his depth with anything else. Even when it seems like Izaya needs him the most there are still things that lie out of his reach.

But maybe here is where he can start making reparations.


End file.
